All This Time
by sherlockholmes-ed
Summary: The adventures of Sherlock and the Tenth Doctor.


Six years old Sherlock Holmes woke up in the middle of the night, feeling unreasonably frightened as he switched on the lamp next to his bed. There was something at the foot of his bed. It wasn't there before, he noted, as sleep ebbed away from the corners of his eyes and he got a clearer look at it. It was a stone statue, hands over its eyes, crouching at the foot of his bed. How very odd, he mused. Yet his musings were interrupted rudely by the sudden flickering of lights, as his lamp seemed to stutter for a split second. He looked at the statue again, and it seemed to have moved. Its hands were no longer covering its eyes, and its mouth was wide open, showing frighteningly pointed teeth. Sherlock heard a squeak escape from his mouth, as the shock forced sleep to retract from his brain and he started to think things over.

It wasn't a dream. If it was, he would have been awake by now. Dreams normally end right after a shock. The moving statue evidently wasn't here for a cup of tea and some chit- chat, and because of that he should really get out of this room. But to where? His parents and Mycroft were gone, for Mycroft had to go to the other side of the state for a interview to get in some private school, and Mommy and Daddy both decided to go with him. They trusted Sherlock to be able to take care of himself. Their house was in the middle of literally nowhere, so the possibility of him managing to find an adult who could help him was painfully slim. He heard Mycroft's snobbish voice in his head, sounding the way he did when Sherlock took too long to figure out his 'puzzles', 'That's just stupid, Sherlock. You're just stupid. Who you're going to find after you get out of this doesn't matter, considering your current situation.' Of course. The statue. He had to get away from it first before thinking about what to do next. He was skipping steps again. The statue seemed to have moved when the lamp went off. When it couldn't be seen. He had to keep his eyes on it, to prevent it from getting to him. His lamp flickered again as he jumped out of his bed and ran to the door, keeping his eyes firmly glued on the statue as he pulled at the doorknob.

The door refused to budge. He could hear the insistent, high- pitched whining of something from the other side of the door as the realisation that he was trapped hit him fully. He leaned against the door helplessly, as the flickering of the lamp got more and more constant, as the buzzing outside the door grew more and more persistent, as the angel got nearer and nearer and he prepared himself for his inevitable death. He wondered what dying was going to feel like.

The buzzing stopped suddenly and he felt the door swing open behind him. He spun around and nearly bumped into the man behind him. 'Hello there, I'm the Doctor,' the man stated cheerfully, his eyes fixed on the statue. 'What's your name?' This really isn't the right time, Sherlock thought, yet he still replied, 'Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes.' 'Nice to meet you, Sherlock. Now run!' The Doctor slammed the door shut and took out what looked like a screwdriver and pointed it at the door. It began to emit some sort of high- pitched, whining noise. Oh, Sherlock thought as he turned around and ran down the corridor. Now he knew what all that whining sound outside his door just now was all about.

He turned a corner and nearly bumped head first into a statue. It's hands were outstretched, almost as if it was reaching out for him. Sherlock noted that there were four more other statues on the stairs. He skidded to a stop and called out, 'Doctor?' A reassuring, human hand clamped down on his shoulder. 'I'm here, Sherlock. Now, we have to find a way to get down there without allowing the Angels to touch us. How might we be able to do so?'

The Angels took up the entire width of the stair, so navigating among them without coming in contact with any of them would be a impossible task. There was no other route. The stairs were the only way down. Of course they could try the windows, but it seemed that the Doctor wanted to go downstairs, not outside, as if he had left something very important down there, Sherlock thought. The Doctor's shoulders seemed a bit too tense. Tense. Present tense, past tense. Doctor. The Doctor. But Doctor who? You can't be named Doctor. For Christ's sake, focus! Screamed the Mycroft- in- his-head. Right. Down. And then he thought of the day Mycroft and his parents left. Sherlock had slid down the bannisters and was chastised by his mother. The bannisters. Oh. 'The bannisters,' he told the Doctor.

'Ah, clever lad!' The Doctor beamed. Now, keep your eyes on them as you go and don't let any of them touch you. Allons-y! Just in case you were interested, it's French for-'

'Let's go. I know,' Sherlock stated as he climbed onto the bannister, while the Doctor stared after the child, a look of thoughtful surprise plastered on his face.

Sherlock slid down the bannister, feeling the wind against his face and enjoying it. He managed to go past two Angels, yet he must had blinked, for now the third Angel creature was leaning to its left. A few more seconds, and he would end up in it's arms.

Bracing himself, he pushed himself off the bannister and onto the trampoline on the ground floor, a birthday present that Sherlock had gotten bored of after two days of jumping and somersaulting on and, because of that, had been left in the nook of the stairs to rot. Sherlock had never been more grateful of its presence than the moment he was enveloped by the soft, starchy fabric. He rolled out of it clumsily, scanning the sitting room warily. The first thing that caught his attention was the bright blue police box in the corner of the room. He wondered where it came from. The next thing that caught his eye (and also alarmed him greatly) was the mob of angels, standing on both sides of his sitting room, inanimate for now as he was staring at them. Yet the sheer number of them was, in the mildest of terms, shocking to him. And then he realised that all the lights in the entire house had been, oddly enough, switched on. It must have been the Doctor. 'Funny, they don't seem to be particularly interested in me. They only seem to want you,' The Doctor stated as he casually slid down the bannister. Sherlock looked back at the stairs yet there were no longer any angels on it. It seemed that they had joined their comrades on the two sides of the sitting room. 'All- righty then. You keep your eyes on the group of Angels on your left, and I'll look at the ones on my right. We have to go over to the police box at the corner of the room. Do you see it? Great. It's key for our escape. Come on now, let's not dally, shall we?'

And so they edged towards the police box at the corner of the sitting room, their backs against each other. It seemed to take forever for them to reach the police box.

'Do we push it somewhere?' Sherlock asked, when they reached it.

'Push it? No. We get into it.'

'How could a box hold off a hoard of intimidating statues that are capable of moving at their own accord?'

The Doctor seemed to be biting back a laugh. Almost as if he found Sherlock's words somewhat amusing.'Oh, they could do much more than move on their own accord. Now be a good boy and get in now, Sherlock Holmes.'

'What are those angels capable of doing? What is this box?'

He heard the Doctor sigh in exasperation. He's not going to answer my question, Sherlock thought. He's a grown-up. He'd just shout at me for being nosy and tell me to mind my own business. To his astonishment, the Doctor replied, 'The Weeping Angels are capable of sending you back in time by touching you-'

'What's so bad about that? I mean, that's like a really cool history trip, is it?'

'You can't come back. You won't be able to see your family ever, ever again.'

'Oh. Well, it's still like getting a second chance at life.' But Sherlock sounded less keen now. He was liking the Angels less and less by the second.

'Now, can you please step into the box? Or would you prefer being zapped back in time by a couple of intimidating stone angels?' The Doctor asked.

'So what might be so amazing and magical about this police box that-' Sherlock broke off as he stepped into the police box. It looked bigger on the inside. The middle of the room was occupied by a cylindrical, semi- transparent tube with control boards surrounding it. This thing- whatever it is- most definitely wasn't just a police box. 'Thoughts?' the Doctor asked as he strode towards the control panels and began to fiddle with the array of knobs. 'What kind of technology is this?' The Doctor seemed slightly surprised by the question. 'That's not what people normally say,' he mused. 'What do people normally say?'

'It's bigger on the inside.'

'That's what people do, state the overly obvious,' Sherlock stated with a shrug.

'You've got a point. Now, Sherlock, allow me to introduce to you the Time And Relative Dimension In Space, otherwise known as TARDIS. In more understandable terms, this is-'

'A machine that could travel through time and space. That's really cool.'

'Oh, it's way more than cool. Also, since when did-' the Doctor squinted at Sherlock,' - eight, nine years old children get so bright? You saved yourself from a hoard of Weeping Angels, know French and what the word technology means. You're one very clever little boy, aren't you?'

'I just turned six last week. And I'm not clever,' Sherlock looked down and shuffled his feet uncomfortably, 'My older brother says that I'm stupid. As in really, really stupid.'

'Well, I'm much more older than your brother and I can tell you that you are anything but stupid, Sherlock Holmes.' The Doctor looked at Sherlock in the eye, 'I have faith that you will go a long, long way and be a great man in the future.' He looked away then, his eyes widening in surprise as he stared at the cylindrical tube in the middle of the room. The pump- like mechanism was now going up and down, emitting a comforting wheezing sound as it did so. 'The TARDIS had just decided to fly itself for this trip. I wonder where we're going. Can we not go to somewhere dangerous? I mean it would be fun, but I do think our little passenger here had already had enough adventure to last him for the next decade.' It took Sherlock a moment to realise that the Doctor was, in fact, talking to the TARDIS. He wondered if the Doctor did that often. Then the careening of the TARDIS threw the two of them apart as the Doctor grabbed for the controls while Sherlock hung on to the railings for dear life.

The TARDIS skidded to a halt all of a sudden, as Sherlock stumbled around, attempting to gain his footing. The Doctor, meanwhile, looked at the door of the TARDIS as he murmured, 'I wonder.' Turning to Sherlock, he said, 'Go on, open the door.'

As Sherlock walked towards the door of the TARDIS, he contemplated the situation he was in right now. He was in a time machine, about to go to somewhere beyond his wildest imaginations. He had no idea where he was going to, and it excited and frightened him at the same time. Sherlock pushed the door, and it swung open.

In front of himm was space, speckled with suns and moons and stars that differed from that of the Solar System. 'The Andromeda Galaxy,' Sherlock murmured breathlessly. '2.5 million light years away from Earth, impossible for a human to travel so far to see with their own eyes. Oh god, I have always wanted to see this.'

'A six year old who knows about the Andromeda Galaxy,' the Doctor beamed. 'You do know quite a lot about everything, don't you?'

It was beautiful The purple and pink and dark blue of space mingled together, a festoon of beauteous colours. Sherlock did not know how long he spent there, floating in space as the Doctor held on to his ankle, as everything whirled on in front of his eyes, occasionally interrupted by the bright flash of a stray meteor. He knew that he had never felt happier in his life than right now, and that was all that mattered.

Yet all good things simply had to come to an end, and Sherlock's peace was interrupted by the Doctor, 'I ought to get you back. It seems that your parents and brother are coming back home. The Angels shouldn't bother you now that you are under your family's protection. You'll be all right now.' Sighing, Sherlock allowed the Doctor to reel him back in and send him home.

He had ran the question through his mind for multiple times, rephrasing it again and again, until finally he allowed the words to plop clumsily out of his mouth. 'Doctor, may I come with you on your travels?' For the Doctor had made him feel like he meant something, that he was clever, even, and Sherlock liked him because of it. 'The little expeditions I go on,' the Doctor started slowly, 'They are, for most of the time, anything but safe. I more- or- less go through near death situations every day.'

'I don't mind danger,' Sherlock stated.

' And I don't mind you,' the Doctor replied, 'But I'll still be bringing you home. You've got to pack up and tell your parents about where you're going, and then you can come with me. All right?' Sherlock beamed as he nodded his head like mad.

'I'll wait for you out here,' said the Doctor as the TARDIS landed in front of Sherlock's house. It was no longer night-time and the bright sunlight that streamed down from the sky made Sherlock happier than ever. He ran upstairs to pack his things, shouting a hello to his family as he did so, filled with anticipation and elation for what was to be. He ran back downstairs with his little backpack, 'I'm going on an adventure!' he shouted down at his parents and his brother. 'Be home by supper, will you?' asked his mother as she clinked around with the pots and pans. Sherlock stopped at that, but then he remembered that the TARDIS was also a time machine, so that was not going to be a problem. 'Shut up, Sherlock. You're interrupting my flow of thoughts,' Mycroft scowled at his little brother as Sherlock rushed by. Ignoring his older brother, Sherlock burst through the front door.

What he saw made him stop in his tracks. The TARDIS was wheezing. It began to fade, as the wheezing grew softer and softer, until the TARDIS and the wheezing sound became no more, as Sherlock stood on the doorstep, unable to move as realisation filled him. The Doctor had left him. The Doctor didn't want him. The Doctor wouldn't be coming back. Or would he? A little voice at the back of his mind asked. And so he sat there, on the steps of his front door, waiting for the Doctor to come back. He refused to go in to supper, he refused to go to bed. No matter how his mother shouted at him, no matter how his father tried to persuade him, no matter how his brother threw insult after insult at him, Sherlock Holmes refused to budge from the doorstep. It took him two whole weeks of no food and no sleep for his logical reasoning to win over his trust for the Doctor. The Doctor was gone, and he was not going to come back.

Sherlock dragged himself back to his room, zombie- like. It was then that he decided to enter his mind palace and do what he must do. It took him no time to locate the room, and he bursted into it, tearing it down. He willed himself to forget every single detail of the Solar System, as the facts that had rested in his palace since he was very, very young slipped from his fingers and dissolved into nothingness. He ripped and tore apart everything in the room, everything that had meant so much of him and to him during the past six years. Images of the Andromeda Galaxy shattered as he threw a fist at it, and when he looked back up from his fist dread, anger and hope pooled into his stomach. It was his memory of the TARDIS, with the Doctor with his messy hair and his big brown coat. 'Sherlock?' the Doctor asked, tilting his head.

Sherlock reached forward, reaching towards them, ready to crush them into a million tiny pieces. His hand was around them now, yet it refused to tighten, to slam into the memories of the TARDIS and the Doctor and crush them. He could feel his brain screaming at his hand, to do what it had been commanded to do, yet his hand refused to yield. It was then that he realised that he could never forget someone who had saved his life. And so, in the wrecked room of his mind palace, Sherlock Holmes retracted his hand, curled up and began to cry.


End file.
